Three Ways to Improve Employee Job Satisfaction
We have all had those jobs where it’s as if the job you were excited to begin turned out to be a never-ending pit of despair. Having been in many of those jobs myself, I’ve noticed some trends that led to that overwhelming dissatisfaction. For all of you hiring managers out there, this is for you.
- Set Clear and Real Expectations
I’ve never understood why so many job postings do not clearly identify the duties, responsibilities, and benefits for a given job. I’ve wasted hour after hour interviewing for jobs thinking the job was one thing, only to find out that it was something completely different. I’ve spent as much as 7 hours in a single day interviewing for the same job, only to find out that the pay was so low I never would have applied if I had known.
In other jobs, the expectations seem clear in the job posting and the interviews, but once you start, those clear expectations become murky. Duties change, benefits you were promised disappear or come with undisclosed conditions, or the 40 hour a week job really requires 60 hours…and there’s no overtime because you’re “a professional” worker.
Hey, hiring managers! Tell the truth! Imagine if you hired someone who had inflated their skills or experience, or who had completely lied about their employment history, would you be excited to have that person continue on in your employ? Likely not. In many cases, that person would be fired for that kind of behavior. But what is a new employee supposed to do? Quit? They just left one job for yours, and now they learn they’ve been bamboozled. If they try to leave, they’ll look like a “job hopper” and become virtually unmarketable. Stop it! Set clear, honest expectations. Put the duties, responsibilities, salary, and benefits in your job postings. Don’t waste everyone’s time when it could be avoided with transparency.
2. Give Feedback
It seems counter-intuitive, but survey after survey of employees reports that they value regular, consistent feedback. Now, feedback does not only mean criticism, despite the behavior of many manager’s. Feedback requires providing meaningful comments on an employee’s work product. If they do something well, let them know. If they fail, tell them how to fix it.
Feedback is one of those things that many, if not most, managers get wrong. They view positive feedback as unnecessary or pointless: “why should I praise someone for doing their job?” Or maybe, “unless they mess up, they should assume they’re doing fine.” Maybe you shouldn’t have to praise someone for doing their job. Maybe an employee should assume he’s doing fine as long as he’s not being criticized. But shouldn’t the question be, “what makes my employee more productive?” If so, then the data suggests that managers ought to be providing regular feedback, positive and negative, to their employees. A manager’s regular interaction with her direct reports should not be solely to assign work and negatively criticize performance. This behavior leads to disengagement and lower productivity. So as much a manager thinks she shouldn’t have to offer feedback, a manager who fails to do so is the one who’s under-performing.
3. Do Not Treat Your Employees Equally
As controversial as that sounds, especially in today’s world where we are supposed to think everyone is equal, it is professional folly to treat everyone equally. What does that mean? It means that you do not offer the same rewards to your best performer and your lowest performer.
I once was authorized to give an additional 15% of my total budget in pay raises for the following year to my team of 18 direct reports. When I spoke to other supervisors about their plans on how they were going to divide up the allocated funds, I was met with an almost unanimous opinion that dividing the money up equally among the team was the best thing to do. I mentally gasped at the idea! How dare they reward each of their employees equally when there were clear standouts and others who were clearly doing just the minimums (or worse, under-performing). There are fewer ways to demotivate your top performers than treating them like everyone else. And there are fewer ways to tell your average employees that you don’t expect them to try and harder than to reward them for being average.
I gave half of the 15% to my highest performer, and the other half I divided up in increasingly lower amounts to my next few top employees. Those who were average, got nothing other than advice on how to improve going into the next year. Why does this make sense? Because your top performers are the ones making you, as the manager, look good. They are the ones who help you meet your metrics, month over month. It’s all too common for managers to not worry about the top performers because they’re “doing just fine,” and spend their time on the average and under-performing employees. If your average employees aren’t getting better, then you’re probably doing something wrong (see number 2). This isn’t to say that you let the average workers just flail about in the ether. A good manager would be training and coaching those folks too, but the majority of your efforts should be on encouraging and rewarding top performance.
Ultimately, hiring and retaining good employees is the most important function any manager can do. Managers who are adept at these three things, in particular, tend to have employees who are more satisfied and productive team members.
Lucas Rowe is an attorney and consultant. Visit Rowe Consulting Group for more information.
